I always thought corporations in FL needed to be more militant... while battleships are just ridiculous, a corporation with a black ops fighter wing and some gunboats making undercover raids on other corps would frankly be awesome. The problem you face here is what ID to use.. mercenary could work decently. Over time, and with good roleplay, perhaps you could acquire yourselves a capital ship to to use as a home base rather than for combat.
My advice to you is, don't listen to the negative comments, don't move too quickly, start out small, and most importantly... get in game do some awesome stuff.
Personally I'd be interested in hearing more about your RP and your ideas for what ID you will use.
I would like to preface what follows with this: I am not saying dont do this, or this is a bad idea, or anything like that. I am just trying to give you some things to think about and some potential comments you will probably face in the future if you continue on this course.
What Im thinking about right now is that as far as i know, it is somewhat unrealistic for individuals to own large transports, hence why the independent trader ID is restricted to 3800. This is because a good deal of infrastructure is required to maintain and operate these ships, the kind of infrastructure such as that possessed by a house corporation.
Now, if you think a transport takes a lot of resources to keep running, imagine how much resources a cruiser or battleship would take. They have more than 10x the crew, the have state of the art equipment which must be kept in peak condition, necessitating frequent maintenance and component replacement. They require a great deal of fuel and their crew has to be highly trained. Additionally there is the issue of various houses having security concerns with an independent capital ship freely roaming about. On top of that, what threat to a trader, or a trade corporation even, is big enough it requires a battleship to fight?
Yeah, sorry to unload all of that on you, I hope it doesnt discourage you terribly much. Just think about what I have posited and be prearranged to answer these kind of questions in the future.
Actually I beg to differ on a few of the points just made.
There are battleships in the real world now that are far from top of the line.
They may have been at SOMEPOINT, but many nations (the states/russia for example) sell outdated hardware to other people who have the money.
I mean, isn't that how ALOT of the middle east countries started their modern day armies? Old weapons given new life?
While I agree that the LARGER ships would be too expensive for anything but the largest corps to maintain, and more then likely viewed as too ineffective for their cost, I see no reason that smaller vessels in SMALL regulated numbers could be owned by corporations.
Again, I agree, LOTS of RP story, and SMALL vessels. Gunboats would be not too far off, but I think only the mega corps could afford even a cruiser.
And again, like owning a car in real life, they are a black hole for credits. They'd have to be WORTH having, and MAKE money, if they are cutting down the profits, no sane corp would field one.
After all, A gunboat can be maintained FAIRLY cheaply (for a cap ship) but a small fleet of bombers can have the same effect, with less personnel and less costs over all. I can outfit 4 or 5 bombers for the cost of ONE gunboat.
Corps LIKE making money, and would only field a cap ship, with a fleet of transports to protect. Otherwise it's just not effective.
Just my honest opinion....
(Question: Maybe we could add a gunboat or cruiser in 4.86 that had scaled down abilities compared to more maintained ships.. Texture it to look a little.. Worn, and call it outdated. make them available to both lawfuls with more money then brains, and unlawfuls with contacts. If we made them less potent then Faction vessels of equal class, they'd be better then nothing, but still not a match for TRUE military vessels... Maybe the model for the original Conference? After all they have to have gone SOMEWHERE.. Mothballed ships get resurrected all the time)
My advice to you would be to go for gunboats. They're relatively available, and are actually made for the purpose you require.
Gunboat is the equivalent of a modern day destroyer. It protects the fleet from small, nimble assault craft, in our case, bombers. And, with assistance from transport guns, it might actually be able to deal with other gunboats, depending on the types of ships involved.
So, make a dedicated escort wing with Mercenary ID. Make it so that they can escort other traders when you guys aren't around. Contact some house representatives, Bounty Hunters, or Zoners maybe... who knows, maybe even some of the pirate groups would be friendly to your cause, and see if you can get a few gunboats from them.
' Wrote:I always thought corporations in FL needed to be more militant... while battleships are just ridiculous, a corporation with a black ops fighter wing and some gunboats making undercover raids on other corps would frankly be awesome.
:rolleyes:
*walks back into the meeting concerning the future of the ASF*